Worship Service for March 29th, Living Faith in These Troubled Times

Sunday School materials for Youth and Children's Sunday School can be found here at:

https://mccc2020youth.blogspot.com/
Parents and Youth, you will receive an email and WeChat with the attached weekly take home sheets and notes for continuing on with the Gospel of Matthew study.

Sunday, March 29th Worship and Sermon

Music, YouTube links (please click on link):

Build My Life, Pat Barrett

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZW4_8_zCBE 

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBfHUrLGzNY

All Hail the Power of Jesus Name, Michael W. Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7hGLr2cLNY 

Living Faith in These Troubled Times

Please have your Bibles ready and follow with my notes.  I have included the scripture references in the notes.

ENGLISH SERVICE:  https://youtu.be/ga3g1EikuIs
CHINESE TRANSLATION:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1euLleK9_DrNcoh_fMthwsYeGFMWdCs4g/view?usp=sharing

Congregational Prayer

Scripture Reading:  Galations 5: 19-26

Foxes Book of Martyrs:  “what is life without Jesus Christ?”  There is no life without Him!  Therefore I choose Jesus!  Even if I have to forfeit my life here.

Persecution and Martyrdom around the world today:  Who is this person, Jesus, that people will die for?  And how do they live such joy filled lives in the middle of all the persecution?

3 simple questions:

What should faith look like in our lives?

Should faith look any different in the times of great trial than when things are more normal and routine?  Or, Do our times determine how our faith should be lived out?

How are we to live our lives in the midst of our current crisis?

Pastor Robert Chapman:  ‘Chapman really believed in the power of and practiced prevailing prayer. And he had supreme confidence in the power of the word faithfully and prayerfully preached to transform people. And he determined to be doggedly patient and tender with the people.’ (Jon Bloom)

Charles Spurgeon called Chapman "the saintliest man I ever knew".

Quote of Robert Chapmans is:  “When a man’s chief business is to serve and please the Lord, all his circumstances become his servants!”

Galatians 5: 22, 23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.  

2^nd Corinthians 11: 23-28

23 Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. 24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— 28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.

Yet through all the perils and suffering of Paul, his mind and heart desires most for that which Christ Himself desires most for!

Suffering for Christ builds in us a level of faith and perseverance not found in any academic or theological discussion.  It is because in our times of trial and suffering, we look to Jesus.

WHY?

John 8:12

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”    

Robert M. McCheyne wrote in 1840:  ‘It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy Christian [minister] is an powerful instrument [awful weapon] in the hand of God.’

Hebrews 12: 2

…and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  

Hebrews 12: 2

“who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  

JOY!  What a funny word to use when so much suffering and pain go hand in hand with it.

Joy, because we are doing it out of love for Him, and out of love for others!
We are called to be that holy Christian!

1^st Peter 1: 3-5

13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14 as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; 15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”  

JOY!  An acronym, ‘Jesus, Others, You,’Sets in our minds the order for our own priorities.  

Jesus First in all matters of our lives.  

Others because our will becomes Jesus’s will: the salvation of all men and women

You are a central part of that.  We are like trees planted in a vineyard.  We are the seeds which God nurtures and waters.  And we grow up to be trees that produce bountiful fruit.  

John 4: 10, 13-15

10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”  15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”  

**Joy found in the fruit of the Spirit as He lives and breathes and moves in us and through us to others.

Are you willing to lay your own life down for Jesus?  

Isaiah 6: 8

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”  

If I keep my eyes on Jesus, no matter what is happening around me, He always leads me in joy and contentment. 

BENEDICTION:

1st Thessalonians 5: 16-24

"16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thank for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all

things; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.

23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it."

Lord, grant us these things in our lives every step of our days.

Amen.  

RESPONDING HYMN:

Blessed Assurance 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSCAuGGT064

Worship service for March 15th, The Lord is My Shepherd!

The Lord is My Shepherd

PRAYER:
Today, let us first begin with prayer.  President Donald Trump has declared today, Sunday, March 15th to be a national day of prayer.  As believers in Almighty God, let us turn to Him, and seek His mercy and grace and healing over our nation.  No one man can change the heart of our nation or heal the many who are sick.  There is only one!  Let us repent of our selfishness and self-centered ways, turn from them and ask God to heal us of the diseases that infect us and restore our lives and that of all the people of the United States to righteousness and trust found only in Jesus Christ!
https://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/2020/03/14/prayer-alert-sunday-march-15th-a-national-day-of-prayer/


WORSHIP MUSIC, YouTube:  all English

My hope is built on nothing less

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkMapZB8qMk

On Christ The Solid Rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GswGE6rQhmE

RESPONDING:

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNq0WtMSmIY

MESSAGE:
Please follow the notes for my sermon in your Bible and meditate on what the Lord is saying to us.  This is a chapter for you and I for this time!  I urge you to listen to the English version, if you are able, as it has more on it than the Chinese translation.  Pastor Kevin

English video version:  https://youtu.be/FYncsTYFl3s
Chinese video version:  https://betheluniversity.instructuremedia.com/embed/11288cbc-d0ed-455e-8409-6df8fdb3fcf2

The scripture passage for this week is the 23rd Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd,

I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

3 He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You have anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,

         And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  Psalm 23   NASB   

When his daughter had died, a synagogue official came to Jesus:
         …“My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.” 19             Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did His disciples.  Matthew 9: 18, 19

While Jesus is going to the officials home, another woman with a hemmorage for 12 years comes to Him for healing, and He heals her.

When Jesus arrives at the officials home, He found the mourners were loud and wailing and carrying on because of the daughter’s death.  But Jesus told them to leave, for the daughter had not died but was asleep.  And everyone laughed at Him.  And then, Jesus goes in and takes her by the hand and raises her.

         26 This news spread throughout all that land.  Matthew 9: 26

Do we listen to the news media accounts and live in fear or do we look to God and His Word to us for strength and trust??!?!?

35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.

         36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and                     dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.                   Matthew 9: 35, 36   

Are we people who live in faith and trust in the Lord, or do we live in fear from the reports that constantly fill the news we listen to?  We need to be honest with ourselves…

David identifies in whom he trusts: it is Adonai, God who is faithful in provision and protection for His own. By the name Adonai, He claims us as His own.  We are His children!  We are the sheep in His pasture:

The Lord is my shepherd,

I shall not want.

Most English Bibles translate this, ‘I shall not want.’ But ‘I lack nothing’ better reflects the actual meaning.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

This passage has a dual meaning: one of peace and one of provision.

3 He restores my soul;

God restores us when we have been damaged, and gives us life when all about us appears lost.  

He guides me in the paths of righteousness

I can try to figure life out on my own, my way.  Or I can look to the Lord, my Lord, and Good Shepherd, and go where He leads me.  It is His righteousness He leads me in!!

For His name’s sake.

It is done for God’s glory.  God alone takes the credit!  He shares His glory with no man.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for You are with me;

He is with us even in this crisis!!  We do not need to fear!!  He will comfort us through it all, even in our darkest hours.  God is with us!!

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.  1^st Peter 5: 6, 7   

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4: 4-7

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

The rod is always ready in the shepherd's hand to save the day.  It is used both as a club and a missile when the urgency of the situation is seen.  The shepherd can redirect or turn the sheep around and lead it back where it belongs.  

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

When all are gathered about you to destroy you, when you feel overwhelmed and unable to move because threats are all around, God wants you to sit down, rest and rejoice, and feast.  Everyone who believes and trusts Jesus has a place at the Lord’s table when enemies attempt to lay siege.  

You have anointed my head with oil;

In the original Hebrew, this speaks of fertilizer, like you might put on a plant.  When David writes that God has anointed his head with oil, he tells us God has given him all the nourishment for growth in his life, the calling for that which he was anointed.  That which God has purposed for him.

My cup overflows.

God provides us with an abundance to do that which He calls us to do so that our cup overflows!

6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,

Through it all, whatever befall me, or come to do me harm, the Lord will surely provide for us goodness and lovingkindness everywhere we go, all the days of our lives!

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The house of the Lord is not made with bricks and mortar.  What David writes is the deep longing to abide in God’s presence.  Those who believe and trust in Him are where God inhabits.

O Lord, I love the habitation of Your house
And the place where Your glory dwells.  Psalm 26: 8

How lovely are Your dwelling places,

O Lord of hosts!

2 My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord;

My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.  Psalm 84: 1, 2 

Take the necessary precautions, but know that God is going to be with you through all that comes.  Bring glory to God by your praises to Him who watches over us!

God tells Joshua:

8 This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1: 8-9

Pray for boldness for yourselves and families.  Pray for your families back home.  Pray for our own nation here.  And be quick to forgive!  Have an attitude always of love and forgiveness toward others, especially those who persecute you.  It is not always easy, but God commands that we do so.

BENEDICTION:
English,   https://youtu.be/y9syNBdASXM